


Everything To Give

by rtmichaelsjones



Series: everything to lose [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Race Against Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rtmichaelsjones/pseuds/rtmichaelsjones
Summary: Wash is running, because it's all he can do.He's got ghosts to see and a life to save, and nothing can stop him now. He can't be too late, because if he is, it's the end of everything he's fought for.So he's running. It's all he can do.





	Everything To Give

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BloodstainedBlonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodstainedBlonde/gifts).



> Very quick shout out - this is dedicated because of how much you've helped me grow, and for encouraging me to take the first step towards writing.
> 
> A/N: This is my first work, so it's not fantastic, and I'm sorry for the many flaws in it. I had fun writing it however, and I hope to use it to grow and improve for this fandom. Thank you. (:

_Ten minutes._

That’s all Wash had. To get to Tucker, to rip his armor plating off, to inject him with the needle that Doc had just shoved into his hand before he'd thrown him off the ship. Wash didn’t know what was in it, just that it was supposed to combat the lethal mixture that Tucker had been injected with.

He knew what he was fighting _against._

Prototype 4.

That’s what they called it. It had no legitimate, scientific name for the drug that had been designed in an unofficial military lab, outside of regulations, totally unclassified and utterly illegal. A military biochemical warfare weapon. Not particularly fast acting, but fast enough.

Too fast. Tucker was dying.

_Too fast._

It had been designed by Locus. It was perfect for throwing a deadly time limit on someone who was already haunted by that invisible clock hanging above them, promising them in silent scratches on the wall of their ship that they were all running out of time. Designed specifically, he should say, for him.

_Nine minutes left._

Because Locus knew that they’d hunt him down eventually. He’d made a mistake: he’d taken Tucker. It hadn’t taken him long to realise that ever since he’d kidnapped Tucker, his lifespan had gotten a hell of a lot shorter. He knew Wash would come after him, would hunt him to the ends of the universe and back again just to get Tucker back safe and sound.

He’d known that he couldn’t keep a hold of Tucker forever. So as soon as he’d found out the remaining soldiers were hot on his tail, he’d acted. He’d prepared for this eventuality by designing two mixtures, one deadly, one an antidote, created and tested in the short time he had as Wash was catching up to him.

He’d opened a news feed, forced a link between his base and their ship, and explained, very briefly, the rules.

He’d inject Tucker. He’d leave them the antidote. They could either go after Tucker and save him, or hunt Locus down and leave Tucker to die.

A mind game. His specialty. Wash’s weakness.

_Eight minutes left._

He’d dragged a broken and bruised Tucker in front of the camera, carelessly jammed the needle into his skin and pushed down the plunger. He knew Wash would go for Tucker, knew that no matter how bad his temptation to hunt down and skin Locus was, he would _always_ go for Tucker first.

Everyone on the ship apart from himself-- Sister, Doc, Sarge, Grif and Simmons, had all known too. There’d been no questions. There’d been no plea for him to leave Tucker and hunt Locus down to end this once and for all. They’d known he’d go after Tucker, and they wouldn’t leave him behind. They _couldn’t._ They were all the war had left.

Long after the mass bombing of the feds, the poisoned supplies of the rebels, the endless napalm strikes that were devastating in their absolution for both sides, there had only been a pathetic gathering of soldiers left. They, miraculously, were part of them. With only a few casualties (but to them it felt like so many more, when the halls didn’t echo with Caboose’s laughter and pink armor lay empty and unworn-- and god, the empty space of Carolina--) they were considered unbeatable. As of two months ago, there had only been four ships left.

Now, there was one.

Their ship.

_Seven minutes left._

They couldn’t handle losing anyone else. They _couldn’t._ It was already too quiet, painful silences digging their sharp claws into their minds at every reminder, and they would literally _shatter apart_ with another loss, with another voice eternally silenced.

That’s why as soon as Locus had finished his little speech, Sarge had grabbed the nearest portable time device and set a countdown for ten minutes. That’s why Grif had opened their bay for the little parcel that Locus materialized through and prepared it as soon it was fully formed. That’s why Simmons had demanded an explanation for _how_ they were meant to get a hold of the antidote if they couldn’t get to Locus or Tucker. That’s why Sister had piloted them immediately through the planet’s atmosphere to land as close as possible to Tucker’s new coordinates.

That’s why Doc had pushed him towards the exit bay and thrust the antidote into his hands, screaming at him to _go, Wash, now._

That’s why Locus had laughed, just once, before he shut off his feed and began his escape.

It was why Wash was running so hard.

_Six minutes left._

He was running for all of them. He was running for the five on the ship, for the three empty spaces, for the man ahead of him that didn’t know his life rested solely on Wash’s shoulders and Wash _could not fail._ Not when it was Tucker’s life on the line. Not when it was totally up to him now as he flew past trees, burned buildings, rubble. He couldn’t lose him. __They__ couldn’t lose him.

That’s why every time he slowed the tiniest bit they were pushing him on, screaming his name through the radio and repeating as many encouragements as they possibly could. Sister kept apologizing because she couldn’t have dropped him off any closer, couldn’t have piloted the ship any closer to Tucker because the anti-aircraft turrets would have killed them all, and eventually Grif had pulled her away from the radio because she wouldn’t stop saying sorry.

He understood. He was the fastest, the fittest. The most driven. So they’d put him on the ground. He was the only one who could get close.

It was on his shoulders, now.

_Five minutes left._

Would the antidote even work?

He didn’t know. None of them knew. They couldn’t risk not taking the chance, and that was a mind game, too. They had to take Locus on his word that Tucker wasn’t dead already. That what Wash was gripping as a lifeline in his hand could save Tucker. That it was definitely PRT4 he’d been injected with, and Wash wasn’t holding anything but the cure.

Wash refused to think about it.

He put his mind to the beginning of agonising pain in his body, to the pounding of his feet on the ground and of his heart in his chest, because it would be exactly Locus to give them a needle full of poison and promise it would be their savior so that he’d practically kill himself trying to save him and for nothing.

To have Tucker die in his arms because of him, because he’d believed a soldier who’d long stopped playing by the rules. Because he couldn’t risk injecting it, but he couldn’t risk not injecting him, either.

Wash was more scared than he’d ever been in his life. He couldn’t remember a time that his pulse had pounded so heavily in his ears, that his heart had raced this hard. Itfelt like the sky was tearing open and the entire world was crashing down on him and he was powerless to stop it.

_Four minutes left._

He was so tired. He was so fucking tired. No human body was capable of running exceedingly long distances at incredibly fast speeds for extended periods of time. He was used to defying expectations, but he couldn’t keep going like this. He wasn’t Carolina, because she was gone too.

His body felt like it was going to fail under him, like his legs would give out and his heart would literally burst out of his chest. He focused on breathing in and out, getting enough air in his system to prevent his body from shutting down like it was threatening to.

And he was still so far. Sister kept sending him maps with his location on it, his distance from Tucker, a clock that was now sitting permanently in the bottom right hand corner of his helmet. Little red numbers that beeped for every minute gone.

He immediately hated it.

_Three minutes left._

Sister had gotten rid of the map. She said it must be distracting for him. Distracting, to see every time he looked down the inevitability that no matter how fast he ran, no matter how superhuman he seemed to be, he wasn’t going to make it?

It was.

She took it down because she couldn’t bear looking at it, either. Instead, a distance countdown started up, right beneath the timer, counting down the meters that Wash put behind him, the meters that were disappearing faster than seemed possible but was still too slow, far too slow.

Wash hated that countdown, too.

The weight of the needle in his palm (of course it was in his palm, he wasn’t ever letting go of this until Tucker was alive and __safe)__  seemed to wear him down. It was the weight on his shoulders, the weight of expectations and fading possibilities and __hope.__

And hope was heavier than he’d ever thought possible.

_Two minutes left._

Wash couldn’t see entirely straight. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen into his body and he could feel himself nearing unconsciousness, but he didn’t allow himself to slow. The edges of his vision were darkening and he couldn’t feel his all of his limbs but he was still running,  he wouldn’t stop running.

He tried to focus on breathing again but it only succeeded in making him stumble, the white hot agony of his constricted chest rebelling against his attempt to focus on it.

It hurt worse when he thought of Tucker, so he focused on his breathing anyway. It wasn’t helping much. He was getting far too dizzy to run as fast as he was, and he was getting seriously oxygen deprived. Flashes of color were blurring past, brief outlines of shapes standing out from the endless trees.

He was hallucinating.

It wasn’t so bad until the flashes turned into people, and then he was running past Caboose, avoiding a tree that had Donut standing next to it, jumping over a rock that Maine was lounging on, and he wished there was some way he didn’t have to see.

_One minute left._

They’d stopped yelling in his ears. The radio was silent. He wished they’d keep talking, because his body was failing under him and it was one of the rare moments in his life that he would readily accept some support.

He flashed past another shade of blue and saw Church hovering nearby. Caboose was at his side now, not running, just there every time he looked. Saw a flash of -- was that South?

Christ. He stumbled. If he could have, he would have tried to speak, but it was impossible. He wanted to scream, to shout and cry and make them disappear again because he didn’t need the ghosts of those he’d lost when he was trying so hard to save one.

He saw Carolina in the distance, and he faltered, because if she was real she would have saved him already, saved them both. It hurt so much he nearly fell, but in the distance he could see Donut, ahead in the field that marked the last land point before where Tucker was. He picked a flower and offered it to Wash when he stumbled past, smiling sadly at him when he just kept moving.

It was the same ghosts now. Caboose was at his side constantly. Church had taken his old place, just in his peripheral vision. Carolina flashed continuously, always just ahead, always as she had been.

He caught a glimpse of Tex. C.T in the tree above him. York, over by the--

A flash of aqua.

Wash stumbled, brought his body back from the very edge of collapse.  

 _No._ The countdown still said fourteen, and Carolina was by his side. No, no no it still saidfourteen _ _\--__

He stumbled heavily and his vision blacked completely, but he blinked himself back to consciousness through sheer power of will.

Caboose hovered worriedly as Wash got back to his feet, and by his side stood Tucker.

_No._

There. Beyond the ghosts, Wash could see a patch of dark skin, lying against a tree.

He dragged himself on hands and knees to Tucker’s body, raising the needle he hadn’t let go of and plunging it carelessly into Tucker’s arm. There was no time to find a vein. He just needed to get it inside him, and it’d be okay.

He pushed the plunger and tried not to think about how the only noise tearing through the air was his ragged gasps. Carolina knelt next to him, and he knew if he looked up what he would find in her eyes.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Caboose put a hand on Donut’s shoulder, and pretended he didn’t see the aqua colored soldier standing by his other side.

_"Tucker--"_

Tucker didn’t move.

_Zero minutes left._


End file.
